Additional Information

This release honors one of France’s most celebrated sculptors, Auguste Rodin, in the centennial year since his death in 1917.

Parisian Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) is considered one of the greatest French sculptors. Among all of his works, the piece most closely associated with Rodin is The Thinker. This piece was commissioned for a monumental gate based on Dante’s Divine Comedy: the Door of Hell. Rodin chose to present Dante leaning forward in order to observe the circles of Hell whilst at the same time, meditating upon his work. A replica of The Thinker stands outside Rodin’s tomb at his home, which later became the Rodin Museum.

The obverse features Rodin in profile at the time of the creation of his most famous work, The Thinker, which is depicted to the left of the artist. The style of the design is inspired by the sculpture itself and imitates the shaping of the material. At lower right on the obverse is a facsimile of Rodin’s signature. The reverse is the common reverse utilized for all eurozone circulation coins: a map of the eurozone along with the numeral 2 and the word EURO superimposed over the map.